Female agents of Hell, Stoic luxury, and failing leaders: Erictho, Tisiphone, and the female gaze in Lucan, Statius, Dante, and Boccaccio.

This article examines the literary portrayal of female Underworld figures—specifically Lucan’s Erictho and Statius’ Tisiphone—in Latin epic poetry and their reception by early Christian writers, including Dante and Boccaccio, who used these pagan images to articulate Christian moral concepts. It highlights how these figures symbolize sinful excess, particularly lust and luxury, framed within Stoic philosophy that condemns passion as irrational and contrary to nature. The article explores Dante’s transformation of the destructive female gaze into a vehicle of spiritual enlightenment through Beatrice, contrasting with the infernal Furies, while Boccaccio offers a more skeptical view of female virtue and emphasizes clemency and reason as means to temper human nature. Overall, the study situates these classical and Christian texts within ongoing debates about gender, morality, and the role of poetry in shaping ethical ideals.